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Dear Theo…

Hello, Squiddies… I am continuing my research into artists that interest Randie…. and me. I have not moved on from Picasso and his tirades, but I am now listening to the audiobook of Dear Theo, which are letters from Vincent Van Gogh to his brother, Theo. The letters FROM Theo aren’t included and so we have a one-sided piece of Van Gogh’s history and view of his world. As is Picasso, Van Gogh’s life and his experiences are entirely fascinating. His circumstances and undiscovered genius, worthy of study, are gripping and very sad… and yet, I find him pathetic in his manipulation of his brother. This is an observation made nearly half way into Dear Theo. I, of course, will continue to research Vincent’s history in more depth, but as with Picasso: Creator & Destroyer, I find myself disappointed with my hero… but am finding some interesting correlations between his life and Randie’s.

‘Any man with charisma is either a devil or a shadow. Any man with intelligence is either a monster or a whisper. Giants walk among us but only the worst are visible. The good ones hide from us.’ – Trevor Bond

Leonardo is the only famous artist I can think of who might be a candidate for canonization, and that assessment could falter under careful study. Artist are human, thus they exhibit human failings. Were they not human, their work probably not speak to us.

Lady Jenn… ah, you really ARE a dark soul… shadowy monsters and whispering devils… Picasso was certainly one of these… Van Gogh, who had a conscience and a reverence, I don’t believe, falls into this category… but alas… I still dig.

Beetles… Yes, human failings and all that put us human make for a good story… Life wouldn’t be nearly as interesting if it were all sunshine, puppies and ice cream. Artists are the most intriguing folk there are. I should know. How wonderfully flawed we are.

I hang with a lot of self-hating poets, cynical philosophers, and humanists. They have some real gems hehehehehehe. Of course, they also have some scary things hanging around in those cobwebbed attics they call brains. Me, I’m not much of a thinker, but I do sponge up a lot of interesting ideas!

Jenn…. does this mean you’re under the table with some regularity? I have been under the table many a time… there are some interesting things under tables… Dorothy Parker hung out under tables… and she was a stunning wit!

“I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I’m under the table,
after four I’m under my host.”
― Dorothy Parker, The Collected Dorothy Parker

I prefer her quote ‘Heterosexuality is not normal, merely common’. Most of my time spent under tables has been either dead drunk or bleeding from severe head trauma, but the saying in this case comes from a scrap of a poem a friend of mine once wrote and eventually discarded because he couldn’t get it flowing right, and I forget not everyone is in my little clique of oddballs (where it’s a common slang for ‘being somewhere you don’t fit in but are accepted’, because I’m not much of a philosopher). It goes:

“I had some good advice
But did not know who to give it to.
I wrote it down twice,
and in the dustbin I threw.
The people that need it
Are normally able.
So I wrote the advice
on the underside of a table.
When people are drunk
They can look up and see
some good sober advice
from sober old me.”